Hard surfaces are slippery and can easily lead to a fall.
Carpet versus hardwood on stairs.
Having carpet on the stairs doesn t necessarily prevent falls but it helps to provide traction compared to hardwood.
A staircase rug is also soft to the feet.
I was not a fan of carpeting before moving into my current home where the stuff covers two stairwells and the whole second floor.
Hardwood or carpet on stairs.
When it comes to safety.
Safety should always come first an as unbelievable as it may sound a carpet will not prevent you from slipping and falling down the stairs.
Installing hardwood floors can cost between 9 and 12 per square foot compared with about 3 to 5 per square foot for carpet so some homeowners opt to install hardwood floors only in some.
Where carpeted stairs really excel is in houses that have noisy stairs.
If you do have hardwood stairs you may want to consider a runner to increase safety.
Carpet is the safer choice.
Beautiful hardwood stairs will be ruined by the addition of carpeting because the tack strips need to be nailed down creating holes in the wood.
In addition should a fall ever occur carpet offers a much softer landing spot than wood flooring which could help reduce the likelihood of injury.
The alternative is real hardwoods for our main floor and stairs both up and down and throughout the hallway.
Besides most homeowners with nice wooden stairs wouldn t be considering carpeting in the first place would they.
Which is right for me.
Cleaning and maintenance of hardwood flooring and carpet.
I m even more of a detractor now that it has caused me to fall three times on the stairs with the most recent incident on monday drawing some blood i m not an especially clumsy person.
Slippery carpet stairs are however not as dangerous as hardwood floors since they provide a soft landing thus the fall will hurt a little less.
I was barefoot having just taken off my slippers that merit their name.
Carpet on the other hand would muffle those high traffic sounds and make for a safer stairway.
One main floor option is hand scraped laminate with carpet up the stairs to the bedroom where carpet will be the entire upper floor then carpet will also go down the stairs from the main floor to the basement rec room and guest space this will be some kind of floating floor.
Hardwood is a good because high traffic throughways would benefit from a durable low maintenance flooring.